Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Nov 12, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 15 3884 59687 Osprey 0 0 24 Bald Eagle 0 9 76 Northern Harrier 0 13 366 Sharp-shinned Hawk 4 123 6527 Cooper's Hawk 0 3 42 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 106 424 Broad-winged Hawk 0 0 21973 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 8 1345 2960 Rough-legged Hawk 0 1 2 Golden Eagle 0 38 53 American Kestrel 0 0 1068 Merlin 2 12 61 Peregrine Falcon 0 4 60 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 29 5538 93324 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 09:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 5.33 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Frank Kitakis, Shourjya Majumder Visitors: We are still dealing with the residue of the Covid 19 situation. The workers at the site will be in an enclosed area that is designed for four people only. We still love to interact and share our love of hawk watching with visitors. Feel free to ask questions and look over our shoulders to help you follow the birds. Watch the weather for favorable forecasts as the birds are predictable to some degree based on weather situations. One other thing of note this year; the boat-launch bathroom building has been shut down for the foreseeable future due to plumbing issues. There are Porta-Johns in the parking lot should you require them. Weather: The hawk watching was lousy today but the metamorphosis of the weather from high dainty cirrus clouds to heavy beasts with dark bottoms dropping rain and snow was spectacular. We had an early solar halo again today which, while pretty, usually means rain is coming. Winds were insistent all day from a southerly direction, mostly SSW but occasionally shifting slightly to S or SW. The lake was choppy with lots of white horses and waves crashed over the stone jetties by Celeron Island. Wind speeds occasionally topped twenty miles per hour. Gale warnings are up on portions of Lakes Michigan and Huron as we are near the center of a low. Our barometer dropped a millibar per hour. It was a fit day out for man nor beast and the beasts knew it, we did not. Raptor Observations: There were probably birds on the move today but our chances of seeing them were slim. High winds tend to keep birds low. Southern winds tend to push them to the north where we have some visibility issues due to tree heights. (Hmmm… if we only had a tower.) Looking at the forecast it was unlikely that we would see many raptors today and that came to pass as we only managed twenty-nine birds. Fifteen turkey vultures were hard rocking in the wind but they seem to love that challenge. Four sharp-shinned hawks struggled through. Eight red-tails made the trek. Two merlins were seen being nasty to their neighbors, as is their wont. Unfortunately, our golden eagle streak came to an end. We had seen them for every day of November. They were moving today as our Canadian neighbors saw them, but we did not. Non-raptor Observations: We noticed a curious habit today of gulls, at first just a solo Bonaparte’s, closely following the pied-billed grebes. Perhaps, they follow all diving birds as we have seen them mob the cormorants when they find a school of bait fish. They didn’t seem intent on thievery as we have seen with ring-bills but the bird stayed very close, repeatedly moving to catch up when the grebe surfaced. We did see the Bonaparte’s in the slip today but the weather was inhospitable and most birds stayed close to home today. No murders of crows were seen. The local eagles put on a show early in the day when the skies were blue but were not seen later on. Predictions: Tomorrow may be another challenging day. Colder temperatures will prevail. Winds will switch to a western direction but still be around fifteen mph. Clouds will fill in and the chance of rain, or snow flurries, stays near twenty per cent. The barometer will stay below thirty inches but will be trying to climb. The high winds may be the most important part of this equation as it will affect the flight line. Whether we will be able to see it or not remains to be seen. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Andrew Sturgess (ajyes72@gmail.com) Detroit River Hawk Watch information may be found at: http://www.detroitriverhawkwatch.org More site information at hawkcount.org: https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=285 Count data submitted via Dunkadoo - Project info at: https://dunkadoo.org/explore/detroit-river-international-wildlife-refuge/detroit-river-hawk-watch-fall-2021